Patches
by Slea
Summary: Amazing what can be read into a simple piece of cloth.


While watching the First part of the mini series, I realized that Apollo came from a different Battlestar as such he would bear the insignia of that Battlestar on his uniform. Unfortunately, I saw nothing that told me what ship he came from so I kinda used some literary licensing. I hope you like the story. I write for the love of the show not for profit. so please if you intend to sue me please pay me first...so that I can afford to give you what you want. I have no money. This goes out in honor of my beta who wears some patches of her own. God Bless you and all who wear a uniform with honor. You have become a good friend Mady and I thank you.  
  
Patches by Cyndi Smith  
  
Lee sat on his bunk; his dress uniform lay across the foot of it. That was where he left it when he dressed for the flight demonstration for Galactica's decommissioning ceremony. It bore the patch of his last ship, the Atlantia. He remembered the first day he came on board, rumor had it that he was assigned on the admiral's flagship because he was an Adama and he had to admit he believed them. No one is this lucky. His CAG stifled that rumor quickly, before he put him in the air. Marker, Alantia's CAG, claimed he handpicked all his men. He didn't give a rat's ass who his father was. He said he liked how he reacted under pressure and if the pressure of being an Adama kid is enough to continue his excellent performance, then he would not have to add pressure of his own. It was, to say the least, an icebreaker, and Marker soon became one of Lee's closest friends. Lee only wanted to be known for his own abilities, not who he was, not who his father was, and Mark "Marker" Morrisey gave him that. His struggle to work his way out from under the Adama shadow only made him work harder. Odd how his work to get out of the shadow of the old man only put him back under the shadow. Lee Adama became one of the youngest captains in the fleet; a triumph shared by only a choice few, one of those being his father. Those who knew Lee expected no less. Those who didn't, just marked it up to his lineage.  
  
He continued to rub the emblem on his dress uniform. The raised words, ATLANTIA BSG 1A, felt suddenly coarse beneath his fingers. He grabbed his duffle from his locker and stuffed the shirt inside. He should have been packing it away until he took leave for his mother's wedding, but that was no longer necessary. The Alantia, his shipmates, his friends, and his mother, they were all gone now. He is packing his uniforms to move to his new quarters as Commander of the Air Group Galactica. He didn't even have civvies with him. Just his uniforms, formal, informal and flight, hell, even his underwear were military issue. The only things left of his past life were the patches sewn on his uniform.  
  
Apollo suddenly dropped his duffle and ran out the officer's quarters. He plowed though a group of rooks that were standing in the halls. He used the officers' mess as a short cut. A young second lieutenant snapped to attention, dropping his meal in the process, but Lee didn't notice. He also didn't see Kara sitting near a table that he had tipped over in his rush to go through. When he finally got to the hangar deck he looked around for his ship. Nothing but Mark IIs where ever he looked. He stopped a deck member carrying old armament for the ancient fighters. "Where is my ship?" he demanded. She shrugged her shoulders. "I am captain Adama, I flew here in a Mark VII, where is it?" Not sure if she was frightened or intimidated, she turned and pointed over to the chiefs' offices. Chief Tyrol, was sitting behind the desk staring at a group photo of his team after they had won some award. From the look on his face, Lee knew this was probably not a good time but he did not care.  
  
"Chief, where's my viper?" he demanded again.  
  
"I don't suppose you had to knock where you came from, sir, but here, it is common courtesy."  
  
"Yeah, right, my apologies, Chief," Adama growled. "Now, where is my ship??!!"  
  
"I had it moved to the starboard landing bay's lower level for repairs. You can't fly it." The Captain took off without even acknowledging the information that he had just received. He rushed back to the other side of the ship. He reached the burned out area of the Galactica and the sight gave him a moment of pause. This would have been what he pictured as the embodiment of hell. The black on black and chrome, the smell of burned flesh and wires, the shapes on the wall, where bodies had been thrown between it and the fire left outlines of those who could not have survived. He looked around, and although they seemed to have the flight elevators up and working, none of the crew elevators were. There were workers with torches everywhere. He ran down the corridors barely hearing some of them screaming something about needing proper headgear in this area. He stepped on the ladder way to the next level and slid down the handrails. He repeated this move until he reached the lower deck. His ship was in the back corner, an area untouched by the nuke that nearly tore apart the ship, though his had its share of damage. At least they had her standing on her landing gear.  
  
He jumped up on the wing and pushed open the canopy, sliding into the cockpit and seating himself. Inside was a small compartment that held the pilot's personal items. He carefully opened it, as if he were afraid what he had put in there would be gone. He pulled them out and clutched them to his chest. Suddenly it was as if the whole world crashed back onto his shoulders. Everything that had happened in the past few hours were now replaying over and over in his mind. He pushed his legs up onto the saddle of his cockpit and laid his head against his knees. This position was much easier when he was a boy in his father's viper cockpit. He clung to the small yellow envelope he held against his chest. He wanted to cry but there were no tears in him. He was a warrior, a captain – no, he was a commander of the fleet air group. A warrior does not cry. One of the many words of wisdom he gained from being a part of the colonial fleet from the day of his birth. That was one of many things that had been misinterpreted by the mind of a young man who only wanted to be like his father. Things made so little sense now, maybe he was wrong, maybe... maybe that is why it felt like he had ripped his own stomach out when he accused his father of killing his brother ... maybe... but it was too late to undo what he had done.  
  
He did not know how long Kara stood at the wing of his bird. Fact was, he did not really care. She said nothing, just waited there. Finally, he held up his envelope.  
  
"It's all I have left," he choked.  
  
She climbed up and leaned against the hood rail and waited until he was ready to talk again. "They are all gone now and this is all I have left." He almost reluctantly passed the envelope to her. For a moment, she looked at him and then back at the envelope, not sure what he wanted her to do with it. He nodded as she opened it. Inside the envelope was a picture of him and Zak with commander Adama. A picture of his mother. Behind that one was a picture of Zak's cadet portrait and attached to the back of that picture was one of Zak's dog tags. Lying loose in the envelope was his own class ring on a silver chain and a few patches. One was the spare Atlantia patch. Everyone had spare uniform patches, for emergencies. The other was the patch of the Colonial War College, with its emblem of golden triangles on a dark blue background. The last were the old patches from the flight uniform of Lieutenant Wm. "HUSKER" Adama. She put them back into the envelope and pulled gently on his shirt sleeve. "Come on, Lee." He pulled himself into a standing position on his seat and waited for her to clear the wing before he slid down the side of the viper. Many a young cadet had broken their ankles doing that. "Don't let the new CAG see you do that," she smiled. "I hear he is an old stick in the mud about following the rules."  
  
"Frak me," he laughed. He didn't really want to laugh but it slipped out.  
  
She smiled back at him and dragged him back up the stairwells to the flight quarters. The trip was long and very quiet. Lee was tired, he looked tired, he also bore a few new bruises from the last battle. By the time she steered him to his new quarters she almost felt as if she was carrying him  
  
"Have to get my uniforms, they're ... Um..." He looked around the room a little confused. "They're by my bunk." He tried to walk past her back out to the officers' bunk area, but she pushed him back towards the bed and headed out the door herself.  
  
"Um... I got 'em, Apollo, I think you need to call it a night. It's been a bitch of a day."  
  
She left him sitting on the bed. She found his duffle easy enough. His old bunk was just above hers, so the bag was on the floor right next to her bed.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
Starbuck looked up at the young ensign that stood before her saluting. She returned it half-heartedly.  
  
"Sir, I was told to deliver these here. The Colonel requested them to be delivered to Captain Adama."  
  
"I'll take them," she offered, but the ensign just frowned.  
  
"I was told to give them to Captain Adama."  
  
"Okay, but I have to warn you, Captain Adama is asleep."  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"I mean it is no big deal to me, but the last ensign who woke a sleeping Adama is currently celebrating his tenth year as the head of Maintenance, in charge of latrines and kitchens."  
  
The ensign hesitated for a moment and then quickly handed the envelope over. He saluted again, and then bolted from the quarters.  
  
Inside the envelope were Apollo's official promotion papers. His CAG lapel pins and seven patches that read, "Battlestar Galactica BSG75". She looked at the duffle bag and back at the envelope. She stepped into the CAG's office, and then peeked into his quarters to find him asleep, still dressed, across the unmade bed.  
  
Looking back into the duffle bag, she pulled out his uniforms and placed them on hangars.  
  
When Apollo got up in the morning, he found his dress uniform and two envelopes laid out on the foot of his bed with a couple paged letter attached. He picked up the uniform top and noticed the patch, then read the letter.  
  
"These came for you while you slept. I replaced the patches on your uniforms and placed the old ones along with your spare ones in your personal envelope. I started to take them to Bolo, he is an artisan with the needle and thread, but then I remembered what your mom once told me while she sewed the patches on Zak's uniform.  
  
'I sew them on by hand,' she told me, 'because I want them to know that while I am not with them, all of my love and prayers are.  
  
'The string,' she told me, 'is a symbol of love. A binding love that not even distance can break.  
  
'Each patch, no matter the shape, is a circle, for it will end where it began. The Circle is the symbol of eternal life. So they know one day we will all be together again.  
  
'I knot it on the end to hold it firmly to the cloth, just as I hold firmly to my faith, that no matter what happens, we will always be together.  
  
'With each stitch I say a prayer to the Lords of Kobol that God will keep an eye on my boys even when I can not.  
  
'At the center of each side, the top, the bottom, right and left, I make three cross stitches. These represent the colonies. They are designed to be the strongest part of the seam as a whole, just as the Colonial warriors from all of the colonies are strong individuals in their own right, they are at their strongest when they work as single unit.  
  
'The last stitch is tied together with the first knot I made, so to bind my prayers together.' Then I remembered, she laughed and said 'It also keeps my hard work from falling apart.'  
  
"After all that, she kisses the middle of the patch and irons out the wrinkles. Hey, I sewed them; don't expect too many miracles in one night.  
  
"Sorry, I am not the seamstress your mom was, but hey, they are on and straight. Besides, it gave me a chance to think about what you said last night. You said that those things you have in your envelope are all you have left. Well, you're wrong. You are one of the lucky ones. You have your father and others who care for you. I know it is difficult to set the past aside and I fear there are not even enough patches in all of the fleet to mend the rift in your world. But look at it for once from his side. For nearly a day you were dead to us. You could not have known the pain it caused. Gaeta said it was he who told your father of the incoming Cylon attack on your ship. He watched in horror as the commander screamed though the com, trying to get through to you. When the screen fuzzed out, it was his duty to report what just happened. Ship's sensors read the detonation of a thermal nuclear device, which might just as well have exploded in the middle of CIC.  
  
"Your father went on because he had to save the rest of us, but Gaeta was sure that he had seen your father die inside. Maybe that is why he went with the recon crew to the munitions dump. Chief said even after the attack, he continued head first into the situation. It is easy to have no fear when there is nothing left to live for ...I know. But you came back to us, and by damned Adama luck, so did he. You cannot know how hard it was for him to even let you out of the CIC for the next mission, you didn't look at him. You didn't see him count your every breath as if it was the only thing keeping him breathing, too. But he let you go. It was, after all, your mission, but before I left the ready room, he pulled me aside and told me specifically to "bring you back." That's what I did. Okay, it was not the most conventional tactic, but I got you home.  
  
"I don't regret what I did. I would do it again to conserve what I have left of my only family. I know you would have done the same thing if the roles had been reversed. Give Galactica a chance. She's a spry old girl and the old man; he earned the respect of this crew. Between the two of them, they take care of their children. You are not alone. Look out your window and you will find you are now big brother to a fleet of people who need you, like Zak needed you, like I need you, like he needs you. Maybe it is not fair for me to ask you to forgive us, so instead I will ask you to at least give us a second chance.  
  
"Damn, this is the longest letter I have ever written, and my fingers hurt from sewing on all those patches. I am going to hit the bunk. You know where to find me if you need me.  
  
Kara."  
  
Lee tossed his dress uniform onto the bunk. Looking at the new patch, he rubbed his fingers over the lettering and thought to himself. New patch, and a new life, maybe it is time for a new beginning. The only thing he was sure of was that there was no time for feeling sorry for himself now. With this new patch he becomes responsible for a lot of people wearing a similar one as well as for many, many more that don't. Maybe it will only take one patch to mend the rift in his world.  
  
fini 


End file.
